Getting Over It: Humanising Game Design

Getting Over It (With Bennett Foddy) is about more than just failure or frustration. From its collaged design to its use of narration, the game seems just as engaged in exploring the relationship between developer, player and gaming culture.

The ‘Reward’ (spoilers): Here’s a little paragraph about the reward to avoid explicit spoilers in the video. If you don’t want to know, do not read beyond this point!
Once you’ve completed the game, and checked the box to promise you’re not streaming, you’re entered into a chat room with everyone else who has completed the game. Here, you can leave a message and read the messages of those who were there before you. In the early days following the game’s release, Bennett Foddy would even come and say hi. I think this is probably the most explicit example of uniting player and developer (as well as one player and another) that exists in the game but I left it out of the essay to avoid spoiling it for anyone who might still be playing. I don’t usually worry about spoilers, but I think these specific circumstances called for extra caution.
Also, I wish I’d mentioned that the rendition of ‘Going Down The Road Feeling Bad’ that is played over the credits of the game is sung by Foddy himself, and that the credits are hand written in his handwriting. Yet more examples of humanisation! No spoilers there, just something I didn’t include and wish I had!
An extra thank you to anyone who took the time to read this too. You’re a star! ★
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[instantflarelr]

I think I've finally come to the end of my hunt of people who actually connected with the game instead of hating it. I really loved the game in every way but could never find anyone who shared the same thoughts as I did. I loved the dialogue and the story in the game. The video was brilliant and highlighted some of the thoughts I had from the philosophy and how the designer gets closer to the player the higher up you go.

[michaelhenderson]

I started playing this game exactly one day before my grandfather unexpectedly passed away.

Following my grandfathers passing, the very next morning I woke up to a bat flying above my head in my room. So, on top of losing my grandpa, I had to start a 4 week course of rabies vaccinations, forcing me to miss his funeral...

My first play through took me roughly 9 hours over the course of that sad week. This game and it’s curated frustration helped me to manage my emotions, which surprised the hell out of me, as I anticipated being left infuriated before I booted it up for the first time.

Needless to say, my life during those few weeks proved far more infuriating than the game, which meant the frustration in the game was, oddly enough, quite the reprieve from life. I found that despite falling back to the bottom on multiple occasions, that it didn’t hurt. On the contrary, I realized that I had full control over where I would go in the game. I may have vaulted myself to the bottom on more than one occasion, and the best moments were when I CHOSE to do so.

This game, with it’s sick and twisted control scheme mirrored the unpredictable and chaotic nature of life, condensed into a ship-in-a-bottle type of experience.

Finally launching myself over that radio tower like a rocket and bouncing off of the asteroids left me with a feeling of accomplishment, sure, but also a very deep sense of peace as I watched Diogenes drift off into space.

I came out of that experience mentally and emotionally stronger than I was when I went in. And in the face of sudden and unexpected loss, or the risk of rabies, or losing my job, or struggling with depression, or… etc., I have found that I am able to continue climbing the proverbial mountain of life, and I have the capacity to find my peace, whether that’s near the lake at the bottom, or at the peak of the summit.

Stay strong, and keep looking up, ESPECIALLY in the face of adversity.

That’s what this game gave to me.

[KeithBallardGaming]

You've got me thinking about a comparison that I don't think has been brought up anywhere else yet: Mercerism.

In Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
" the remnants of the human race on Earth have a household appliance known as the Empathy Box. This box is a part of a fictional religion known as Mercerism. When you hold the handles of the Empathy Box you become a man named Wilbur Mercer. It's rather important and stated outright that you do not WATCH Mercer, you become him. You feel what he feels, and experience his trials as if they were your own. Everyone who uses the empathy box is experiencing the same thing at the same time, including the pain, so much like your Bennett Foddy community experience observation, the Empathy Box is also a globally shared experience of, well, empathy.

And get this: what is Mercer doing in the vision? Climbing a mountain. He doesn't tend to fall off the mountain, as that tends to kill people, but he experiences many setbacks, including rocks somehow constantly being thrown in his face, the impacts of which are felt by everyone around the world. This was all scrapped of course in the Blade Runner movie adaptation. Still, I guess even the ultra-specific idea of a community experience around an avatar struggling to climb a mountain for uncertain reasons has been done before. Now I'm really curious about whether Foddy has read the book and whether this parallel is intentional or coincidence.

[thegeekclub]

This is great. I've seen some reviews of the game, but none that really pinned down all the facets of the game. It's nice to see the work explored as a whole.

[snailsnail]

The video is a really sharp, insightful analysis of the game and constitutes a really astute example of game criticism the likes of which is frightfully rare. Many thumbs up.

[faeriehoon]

Both her and Bennett's voices are so soothing. I could fall asleep with this.

[theoperrin]

it's exciting to be here to see this channel before it inevitably blows up for being amazing tbh

[daone]

I've been subscribed for quite a while, almost as long as the channel has been around, but this is my first time commenting. I just wanted to say that I really think you're one of the best video essayists working right now. Your content is focused and insightful, your editing work is often subtle but always meaningful, and I appreciate your work very much. Thank you for making these videos.

[tenfivesmiths]

Thing is, our generation, we were never really taught how to internalize and process failiure. Some people are better at it than others, of course, but we as a whole, as a mentality of now adult people that now maintain a stream of cultural conciousness, we never learned how to handle failiure - growing up in a locked capitalistic system made us unable to handle not being "good enough". So I think this game manages to teach that to a lot of people as a long overdue life lesson.

[loganlawrence]

I love how thoughtful and gentle your video essays are - you really do the term justice. Thanks for all the work you put into sharing things you think are worth sharing, and explaining why that is.

[tophatguru]

I remember finding this video 3 years ago and crying, and then I lost the video. But after hunting for this video I was able to rewatch and strangely still cry.

[GeolyteGM]

The biggest realization this game gave me is that it predicted the future of games & most of all media being made with fabricated objects, assets, trash. All compiled toghether into an artform & becoming a cultural hit. Those being Garden of Banban, Only Up, Skibidi Toilet & so many more nowadays. (That includes Getting Over It aswell)
And even now with the power of AI, something that also recycles trash but mainly every form of art to ever exist and steals it to make an amalgamation of digital content. Just think about how fasinatingly scary that is.

[gmh]

Underappreciated video, possibly the best analysis out there of the game's themes and also Bennett's design philosophy.

[christianvold]

this was a brilliant perspective on a game I had conflicting ideas about its philosophy, but seeing it summarized and given contemplative effort in this way made me reflect on the experience of playing it with a new amusement. Its an interisting peace of digital art, in its own way a renegade and sadly as digital culture goes will be forgoten in time.

[padraick]

I have to to agree with some of the other commentators who have already wrote. As i suspected after looking at others analyzing film and creative arts after 2 years of researching for my blog - where I hope to bring together as a source of info - this video of yours is unique, and your overall approach is very unique and I love this videos core message. To be honest I, m not a gamer but know how gaming is going to take off even more than it has already in time as cinema biggest competitor, but you really brought me around to see it differently - as in the gaming world is not all about getting a dopamine rush - it can be about something else. Really looking forward to your next videos and seeing what you get up to in the future. thanks again Grace for all your hard work.

[chileanywayssso]

I love your videos! They're the kind that actually teaches me something, and in this case the core philosophy of this game.

[DoctaFenBalls]

Thank you.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts here.
These essays are a consistent delight.

[LikeStoriesofOld]

This was great! I really want to play that game now :)

[HiCZoK]

Finally someone talking about the philosophy of this instead of difficult. I really like foddy narration in this

[kwark]

His voice lines made me think that he's a monster for commenting all my mistakes. In his final voice lines I was truly sorry and realised that I was the monster the whole time